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Ludosport is a combat sport created in 2006, in Milano, Italy. The sport is based on the premise of lightsaber combat. Practitioners of the sport can choose between seven forms and three weapons.
The sport was created in 2006, by founding Masters Simone Spreafico, Gianluca Longo, and Fabio Monticelli. [1] In the following years, academies opened in more cities around Italy and beyond. By summer 2024, the sport is available in several countries in Europe and North America, as well as Brazil, Reunion Island, and Japan. [2]
Because of the sport’s Italian origin, all techniques are taught in Italian. [3]
The sport can be played both casually but also competitively. There are different types of competitions, including open tournaments, academy and school tournaments, national tournaments, and champions arena.
The open tournaments are organized both at national as well as international level and give everyone the opportunity to compete with other practitioners from different academies without worrying about the result of the competition as these does not affect the official rankings.
Within an academy, two different rated tournaments are held every year: the School Tournament, which is dedicated to all athletes of a single training hall- and the Academy Tournament, where all athletes belonging to an academy can attend. Rated tournaments assign points for the War and Style rankings which define the overall performance of an athlete on a worldwide basis.
The National competition is accessible by the best athletes of each academy of a country according to the War and Style rankings. The winners of this challenge become the national champions of and can represent their country at the Champions Arena.
This is the most important competition of the LudoSport lightsaber sports fencing circuit where only the best athletes of each country can challenge each other to discover who is the best in War and Style. This is LudoSport’s equivalent to world championship. [4]
While the sport is very new, it has gained recognition and is continuously featured in news articles and news reports. Although it has yet to become officially recognized as a real sport worldwide, the Swedish Budo and Martial Arts Association has recognized it, meaning the Swedish government officially recognizes it as a sport. [5] [6]
There are three weapons used within the sport. The weapon everyone learns to wield when they first start is called long blade, which is a typical lightsaber. Once the practitioner has shown they have control with the long saber they may choose to learn the saberstaff and daggers. The saberstaff is a double ended lightsaber. The main difference between a saberstaff and a long blade is the length of the hilts, where the saberstaff is slightly longer. The third weapon are the daggers, these are shorter lightsabers and because of these being noticeably shorter, users of this weapon uses two daggers. These can be compared to “shoto lightsabers”.
Unlike fencing, where electronic equipment is used to indicate hits, ludosport uses self declaration to indicate hits. Meaning that the one hit must say either IH or OH when hit. These are the two types of hits. IH hits are non lethal but forces the one hit to open up, giving the opponent an advantage. OH hits on the other hand are lethal.
Although the sport relies on self declaration, there are also always judges who keep track of the match.
Each match comprised three so called assalti (rounds). An assalti can have three outcomes: if one of the duelists gets an OH hit on the opponent they will receive the point. However, if both duelists hit each other at the same time it will result in a doppio, (meaning double in Italian). A doppio gives no points but still uses up the assalti. The third outcome is nullo, this only happens when the judges cannot determine what happened and who should’ve gotten the point. If nullo happens the assalti will be redone.
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